The dhayut got all squirly on my bottom flank. They sent a fleet to my system on a clear attack run. Tried to get troops down. I obliterated their fleet defensively. I sent two warnings: stop attacking, remove ships. No and no to both.

Ok, How about a counter attack. I invaded a planet of theirs. Oops, didn't declare war. My reputation is now diabolical. My fastest friend, another aggressive bug race, had a +60 favourability... now its -50 because of the -110 rep hit.

How do I maintain a good reputation against a CLEAR violator? Is it better to spontaneously declare war? Generally I thought declaring war made ME the aggressor. I'm missing something here.

Incidentally, after smoking two of their fleets and taking a minor world, they sue'd for peace: i said sure, if you become my subjugated dominion.

...

Now one week later they're begging for release and my advisors are suggesting I do so. Whats the point of subjugation again?

It seem logical.You act like a Dhayut by invading worlds with no DOW and you get a bad rep.

I think the mechanic is too forgiving as it stands.You can bombard many colonies to dust and your reputation is hardly damaged and recovers pretty fast.It cetainly needs tweaking to make the new ground combat relavent in the next expansion.Bombarding empires back to the stone age is very easy.

That just recently happened to me. I think if you get attacked then it should just be a formality to DOW on your attacker. But yes, it seems that you should DOW them before you counter-attack them. Also take out some pirates to increase your rep.

The whole subjugation was a PITA. Initially they had little money so didn't get much from them (suppose to get 10%) and after a while of them crying I released them, they just built back up and attacked me again. Ha! Ended up with a reputation of diabolical. Since my rep was already so bad, I just went with it and wiped them out. Watch out for the AG as you will start to have encounters with them due to your rep.

I think a lot of the reputation part of the game needs to be reworked as it doesn't really make much sense. It seems like you can get away with a lot of insanely capricious behavior just so long as you use the legal fig leaf of declaring war first as a precaution. If I were President and decided to declare war on Canada totally on a whim, like say because I'm angry about the NHL lockout or because I think Molson tastes like piss water, even most countries that are traditional US allies would think I was completely nuts and would put a lot of distance between themselves & the US if not come to the actual aid of the victimized Canucks. But instead here's what happened when I declared war on Empire 1, a protectorate of mine for no reason whatsoever:

Empire 1 also had "pleased" or "friendly" status with most of those other empires. Realistically there should have been some serious diplomatic repercussions for my Empire's bad behavior that go way beyond just a token 1 point reputation drop in most cases.

< Message edited by Quad Fin Rider -- 1/26/2013 1:17:01 AM >

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What the hell do you know about surfing, Major? You're from goddamned New Jersey.

I am too use to the reputation management of per-Shadows were you could just blow up some easy re-spawning pirate bases to rebuild your reputation. Now I don't care and just follow house rules and use the editor to keep my reputation where I think it should be.

Basically blowing up pirate bases and honoring defense packs are good. Declaring war is a smaller hit than attacking ships or invading planets you are not at war with. Invading independents is bad. Bombarding a colony is a small hit but adds up. Blowing one up is very bad news. Exterminating a race via colony polices has no effect though, but does have a relationship hit with that race's empire. I think being paid to declare war through the trade screen has a smaller hit, if not it is still the more profitable way. Being caught doing intelligent missions I think will give a hit, or it could just be a relationship hit.

The hits are smaller the worse the target empire's reputation is. No one cares what you do to pirates expect for the pirate target. While playing as a pirate, well you are a pirate.

I ignore the demands of subjugated empires. If they don't like it they can declare war and lets see far they get. Considering how they got in that situation in the first place, it will not be far. Be like the Romans.

On the other hand, non-capricious behaviour is penalized just as strongly as capricious. Why can't I raid someone who already raided me without declaring war first, or else the consequences... Grrr!

Right! I just got raided by an empire, to no effect for him. My defending fleet captured his warship, and his three piddling troops were no match for my clones. I think he raided me because he didn't want to have a free trade agreement with me any more due to my low reputation. His reputation dropped to dubious and my reputation for capturing his warship was unaffected. I did the right thing ignoring the little pest...